Review on sizing and management of stand-alone PV/WIND systems with storage

Extending the public electricity grid to rural or peri-urban areas is sometimes very costly and unprofitable due to their remoteness, low population density and sometimes difficult accessibility. In view of this, and in the concern of a sustainable development, the autonomous PV and/or wind power systems is increasingly used. However, these fluctuating source systems remain unreliable due especially to their intermittent nature, what justifies the integration of battery storage systems to them. They are also still expensive, particularly in the African context, limiting their access to the greatest number of the population. In addition to these problems of cost and reliability, the issue of optimal sizing of such systems is essential. In this paper, energy storage technologies, performance criteria, basic energy production and storage models, configuration types, sizing and management techniques discussed in the literature for the study of stand-alone solar and/or wind power systems in isolated sites are reviewed. The findings of the present study reveals that electrochemical battery is the main technology used for energy storage in stand-alone PV-wind systems due in particular to their maturity compared to the other storage technologies. However, it also shows that while batteries are the most widely used energy storage technology for solar and wind power systems, they are still expensive. The paper also revealed that traditional methods of optimal sizing and management of autonomous solar and wind power generation systems are being used less and less, in favor of artificial intelligence methods, due mainly to their limited flexibility and inability to solve complex problems.